Degeneration
by Saerzion
Summary: The descent into madness and savagery consumes everything you are, eliminates your future, burns unlike any other. And when it comes to Charon, the change tears him asunder. Broken dreams are a given. Broken hearts are another.


_I can't define_

_This rage of mine._

Simmering ire coursed through him as the light of a thousand stars peered through the fractures of the dilapidated ceiling. Everything else faded into black and silence, leaving a world void of coherence, a nothingness that echoed back. He struggled to maintain lucidity, already beginning to forget the life he'd led. Two versions flashed across his distant memory, one of a fabled golden age long gone, the other a reminder of this fragmented song.

_I thrash within_

_My searing skin._

Trapped, suffocating. It burned with a fire no flame could replicate. He heard himself garble a series of noises through clenched teeth as his blood ignited and blazed through his veins. Bones broke and reset at an alarming rate, and the pain heightened his delirium, fed the churn of his hatred. The cool wooden floor was a mercy against his writhing back, but the heat never ebbed, only rose with each horrible crack.

_I lash, I harm_

_Her trembling arms._

He felt them then, the deep scratches his jagged nails had raked over her flesh. Somewhere in the recesses of his consciousness, a flag sprung up. It meant something. _She_ meant something. The thought of the abolished contract came next, but another tie bound him to her. An illusion, most likely, yet amidst the turmoil eating him alive, he felt the impossible take form.

And when their fingers entwined, the intact bond pushed back the looming maelstrom.

The twisting of his body stopped as clarity broke through the haze, and in the dimness, his deteriorating eyes traveled to her face. Sorrow and terror reflected in her gaze, desperate, pleading, but loneliness already set in place.

_She clasps me tight,_

_Staves off the night._

Her embrace locked around him and pulled him closer against the beating of her heart. He listened to the rhythmic drumming within her chest, realizing she'd been there since the darkness began, comprehending that she hadn't left his side. They phased into stillness in the middle of her house, the only other sound the faraway humming of the robotic butler upstairs. He took solace in this temporary interlude of peace, knowing it was all almost over, that everything he was, and had been, would cease.

"How long?" he asked, voice raspier than ever.

"Twice as long as last time for you to come back to me," she replied hoarsely. Weary, anxious, but not beaten.

"This may be the final time," he told her. The attempt to sound detached failed, for his hands tightened over hers of their own accord.

"Don't say that. I'm not giving up, and neither can you."

He had no comforting words to spare, as he refused to lie to her. "I promised you I'd fight until the end. I will. But this may be it."

"No. You're just going through some kind of rare ghoul fever. I won't accept the alternative," she snapped, the angry tone overshadowed by her distress. "That bastard Dr. Banfield couldn't have been right."

_Amidst the fears,_

_I taste her tears._

It took considerable effort to raise his maimed arm, but he ignored the ripping agony to brush the clear drops from her cheeks. "Denial will not change anything. It is better to accept this than to prolong the ache."

Wisps of long hair escaped her braid as she bent toward him and shook her head. "I can't," she whispered, now shaking. "I can't lose another…"

He knew she still suffered from the death of her father as well as her exile from the Vault she'd once called home. The life they'd built out here had gone through many phases, forged by the belief that through every trial they faced, they would be together. From servant to lover, then partner, significant other… he, more than anyone, wished to remain. Her losses reached a number far too cruel to count, but his one loss trumped all if it meant forsaking her for the ground.

Eyesight faltering, he traced his fingertips along her jawline, the shape of which he'd memorized a long time ago. "Just remember me this way."

"Please…"

"I don't want to leave you. But—"

_I can't reverse_

_This wretched curse._

A crippling series of jolts along his spine yanked him back to the nether, and he heard her cry out just as the inferno engulfed him once again.

In his last moments of rationality, he ground out, "You know what to do. Shells are already loaded. Always remember, I l—"

Splintering, a clatter, something inside shattered.

_It seeks, it binds_

_My breaking mind._

The spreading mental fissures destroyed his ability to form intelligible thought. Only raw emotion persisted, fueled by the relentless fire that consumed him. Truth and fallacy blurred together, giving way to some innate motive, an instinct to raze his surroundings. New strength, unchecked, surged to his limbs. His throat constricted so words no longer developed. His eyes misted to a fog that saw no morality.

And with the former self sinking down, he rounded to pound, took the reins, seized the crown.

_The pain, the toll…_

_Loss of control._

Striking outward, his palm collided with something once cherished.

A shrill, piercing noise assaulted his sensitized hearing, and it boiled his blood, spurring, searing. As the restraints fell away, he leapt to his feet. Deep inside, remnants of the man tried to cling to his sense of past, of history, of _her_, but the ferocity had taken over, and they were lost to the void. He ruled none of his own actions, now a slave to the taint. The savage emerged, left the rest in constraints.

No matter how hard his humanity fought for the surface, his bleeding heart only earned a manic sneer.

_A monster snarls…_

_My body gnarls._

Clicking, fusing, leering, jeering.

The restructured frame beneath his skin enabled his swift movements. An unseen foe stood in wait, the cries winding and grinding through the lies of this state. Driven by inherent wrath, he listened for the paradox and slashed out an arc. His swing caught nothing this time, only the draft of a close dodge. Still, he detected a weakness; if not external, internal. A brief interlude followed, wherein he grasped the progression.

Reborn, rebuilt, restored, no guilt.

Then the pump of a shotgun filled the dead air.

_All reason falls…_

_The madness calls._

A cold metal barrel met his blind stare.

So far gone, yet he recognized his impending demise. Fallen twice, not to rise, things unspoken in her eyes.

This outcome he could forgive. For his end meant she lived.

The beast reviled, went wild. The man inside merely smiled.

_It seals my fate…_

_Degenerate._

x-x-x-x-x

**A/N:** Kudos to those who immediately recognized what this portrayed. However, if all you got out of it was the idea that I'm a rhyme fetishist, well… you'd be right, but that's beside the point. This depicted Charon regressing into a feral ghoul. I wrote the poem earlier this year for the kink meme, but decided to adapt it into a short story. Thanks for reading!


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